


and sometimes she loved me too

by secondaudrina (firstaudrina)



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:26:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22356367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstaudrina/pseuds/secondaudrina
Summary: Blair showed up in Rome three days ago and Dan has yet to ask her why, though unasked and unanswered questions haven't stopped him from wondering.
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf, Dan Humphrey/Georgina Sparks
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	and sometimes she loved me too

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Season 5 wish fulfillment.

Blair showed up in Rome three days ago and Dan has yet to ask her why, though unasked and unanswered questions haven't stopped him from wondering.

Her appearance seemed to be coincidental. Dan was typing outside at a café – pretending to type, actually, because he'd blown off his entire program thanks to bone-deep writers' block that he just couldn't shake – on the typewriter Georgina bought for him. Tired and hot and just kind of weary, Dan slumped in his chair, gaze traveling over the street without really looking at anything in particular. At first he didn't notice Blair in the crowd, and then he thought she was a hallucination because, honestly, he'd been seeing her everywhere for the last two months. It was a scene straight out of one of his daydreams, and she looked just how he had pictured her looking during what was supposed to be their summer together. She was tan, her dress a blushing coral against sunned skin; her hair was shorter, just touching her shoulders, and much lighter, brown warmed up with golden blonde. It didn't feel like she was there for him, just that she was there, but her searching gaze locked onto him so fast it had to be on purpose.

She called his name four times before Dan registered it as reality, sitting up so straight he nearly knocked his coffee over. That was three days ago.

Georgina is far from pleased to have Blair around. "I thought the whole _point_ was to avoid her," she sniffs, arm hooked possessively through Dan's.

"She found me. I didn't go looking for her," Dan points out. It's no small feat; even in his flat-out misery he'd entertained more than one fantasy of storming off to Monte Carlo to make impassioned speeches that would have Blair leaping into his arms. In the early days of his trip, he'd wasted so much maudlin time going through pictures of Blair and Chuck online that Georgina took away his internet (except for an hour-long window once a week when she allows him to respond to emails, supervised). Georgina is half a rebound and half a warden, and Dan hadn't minded ceding control to her. Not until Blair turned up, that is.

Blair is at a ritzy five star hotel near all the shopping; Dan and Georgina are in humbler accommodations, an apartment of someone Georgina knows who is elsewhere at the moment. They've stayed all over in the last two months after getting ousted from the workshop lodgings and Dan likes it, likes moving around. He doesn't feel settled in his skin at the moment, so all the restless shifting agrees with him. Since Blair's arrival in Rome, Dan has walked every morning from his borrowed flat to the doors of her hotel, where she is always waiting impatiently for him.

"You should tell her to go fuck herself," Georgina says.

"I really should," Dan agrees, the emptiest of empty words.

He keeps replaying that first moment in his head, Blair's eyes meeting his over cobblestones and busy Italians. Neither of them had smiled but there'd been an obvious jolt of recognition – and something like trepidation. The last time they'd seen each other, she'd promised that he was the one she wanted to be with. Funny how that had worked out.

Blair seemed unwilling to cross that final stretch to him but she did it anyway, hands clasping her purse as she looked side to side before darting quickly to his table. Dan firmly told himself to remain seated but of course he stood, unable to help it. Then they were face to face, in each other's breathing room, and Dan didn't know whether to kiss her or tell her to fuck off.

Luckily Blair broke the ice. The first words out of her mouth were, "Your hair is actually horrific."

"Yours looks dip-dyed," he retorted, even though he really thought she looked very nice. He wanted to touch the soft waves of her hair but held himself back.

On the tip of his tongue was _what the hell are you doing here_ but before he could say anything, Blair was tugging the sheet of paper from his typewriter and asking what decade he thought he was living in. It was so stunningly normal that Dan fell right into the trap and spent the better part of an hour bitching back and forth with her until Georgina came to collect him for dinner and her eyes went saucer-sized.

Before Georgina pulled him away, Blair said, "Would you like to be tourists tomorrow?" and Dan said, "sure," as though it was nothing at all.

The entire purpose of Dan taking Georgina to Rome was to pen some epic takedown that he'd probably look back on as the big nervous breakdown of his professional and personal lives. That had lasted maybe two weeks before Dan threw all his notes in one of the fountains, returning guilt-ridden half an hour later to fish out his ruined, waterlogged progress. After that he mostly scrawled or typed up bland descriptions of whatever he was directly looking at – his own feelings he kept locked up, unwilling to even waste ink on them. Sometimes Georgina would dirty-talk him into writing porn for her, and then he'd read it while she masturbated. That was probably the highlight of the trip, actually.

He and Blair hadn't planned on where to meet up, but they both gravitated back to the café early in the day, setting off with very little in the way of conversation. Blair told him where she was staying, the Hotel d'Inghilterra on Via Bocca di Leone, and he liked the clumsy way her mouth shaped the words, unsure of her Italian. He gave her his temporary address in turn, hands tucked awkwardly in his pockets. Blair's fingers twisted in the strap of her bag, a very un-Blair-like nervous tic.

In the process of falling in love with Blair, Dan's train of thought would often motor back to junior year of high school: the first and strongest impression she would ever leave on him. He would think about the nasty, beautiful girl he had honestly hated, no subtext there. He would think of the harsh arch of her brow and the warpaint-red of her lips, the precise way she moved and the particular way she dressed. He thought she was so high maintenance. He didn't understand why anyone would put so much effort into being so uptight and he didn't really get that he did the exact same thing back then.

He would compare that girl with the one he fell in love with, the one who was sharp and funny and mean and bright. He would think about the girl who cut him down to size and the girl who tried to hide the fact that black and white movies made her cry. He'd think about a girl whose mother broke her heart and a girl who lied and lied and pretended not to love him. He'd think that those girls were not really altogether different at the end of the day and he's afraid that he would've fallen in love with Blair years and years ago if only he'd been looking to.

As they're walking from the café up towards the Villa Borghese, he says suddenly, "Jenny isn't speaking to me."

Blair's expression is cautious. "Oh?"

"She hasn't been," he amends. "I never told you that. When we started –" He clears his throat. "She's been angry at me since."

"Oh," Blair says again, still uncertain. He's not used to her like this. Indecisive, yes, but never so tentative, especially on topics like his sister.

"She thought it was a betrayal," he presses, eyes on her face for any revealing twitch.

"Okay," she says slowly, taking a deep breath, and that's it, the conversation falters to silence right there. Their conversations rarely falter; they have too much to say, especially to each other, too many opinions and too much sniping. But they continue in silence for the half hour walk, and Blair never once demands a cab or bitches about blisters. They take in the grounds and the art without incident and then part. Dan goes to meet Georgina. He doesn't know where Blair goes.

Georgina is understandably furious about the whole Blair situation. Full lips curled in something between a snarl and a pout, she crosses her arms and glares at him. She says, "You _know_ what's going to happen, don't you?"

Dan knows what he hopes for and what he's never going to get; they're the same thing, after all. Blair is probably here to gently break the news of her engagement to Chuck.

"Don't worry about it," he says.

"Don't _worry_ about it?" Georgina repeats, voice low. "It's bad enough that you haven't been hitting your quotas. You know she's going to completely derail you." She sniffs, chin lifting. "You really don't appreciate a single thing I do for you."

Georgina mostly coaxes him into sex he's only interested in half the time. She tries to keep him from falling into a crippling depression spiral, but her methods are more black market pharmaceutical than he would like. She's also vicious about keeping him on a writing schedule, though she's been gravely disappointed by his piss-poor output all summer; as long as he's doing _something_ , she says she's not picky what it is. Like some kind of crazed ex-girlfriend mother hen from Satan, she likes to remind him that he has a career to think of.

He does appreciate it, kind of; at the very least he's glad he hasn't been alone.

"I wrote something for you," Dan says, a restrained suggestiveness to his tone. Georgina perks up immediately.

"Did you?" she says, reaching out to curl her fingers in his shirt. She pulls until they're chest to chest, though Dan keeps his hands to himself for now. He always puts off touching her just to make her crazy.

"Get on the bed," he says. "I'll read it to you."

The best thing about Georgina is that she doesn't want Dan to be nice, and that's the worst thing too. Right now he's not going to turn away her particular helpful way of shutting his brain off – he could certainly use the quiet – but, as always, he wishes he was in a beautiful city with a person he loved and not just a girl who peer-pressures him into some weird sex stuff he would never have thought of otherwise.

Tonight, however, is not weird or strange or uncomfortable; he gets Georgina off with his words, voice quiet and slow, and his hands, the ink on his skin smudging onto hers.

A week passes and Dan still doesn't ask why Blair is here. She doesn't offer up any explanations either. A little daily ritual develops between them: quiet breakfasts together and quieter roaming, conversation limited to the art or the sights. It's a pale facsimile of the trip Dan wanted to have back before everything went to shit and that seems to twist the knife in his heart poignantly. He keeps a notebook with him at all times and a silly little book is beginning to take shape within it, a novella about a trip with a girl who doesn't love you back. He never puts any of it into his typed notes, keeping it private. He doesn't want to share it with Georgina, or with anyone. It's just for him, his sad little story.

One sunny day is spent reading tour books and eating gelato by the Trevi Fountain. It is exactly what Dan wanted but nothing like what he wanted at all. He still feels like he can't catch his breath when he's next to Blair, like she's going to disappear if he blinks. Part of him is waiting for the other shoe to drop but most of him is just longing for her, just craving.

They sit beside each other on the ledge of the fountain, which is annoyingly crowded. Gelato melts in little paper cups on the foot or so of space they've left between them. She complains about the breeze, which keeps whipping golden brown strands of hair into her eyes, across the bridge of a nose now graced with delicate freckles. He had no idea she freckled in the summer. It's somehow painful, that knowledge, painful like the strap of her white sundress against her tan skin makes him want to tip back into the fountain and choke to death on a handful of wishing coins.

"We should come back at night," Blair says as she glances around, book lowered. She looks at him with a smile, guileless and almost shy. "I'll wear a black dress and try to find a kitten."

"But you wouldn't get in the water," he says, dipping fingers in and flicking droplets at her, which Blair does her best to dodge, nose scrunching up. "You won't even touch a dish after you've put it in the sink."

"Avoidance of germs and disease is a healthy attitude to take," she says loftily. Something in her expression shifts then, and she adds, "But no; I'll never be the kind of girl who spontaneously climbs into a fountain just because she feels like it."

 _I like that about you_ , he almost says, but he's not here to give her assurances anymore. The moment stagnates and, awkwardly, they both return to their guidebooks.

Georgina has been missing in action since the night before (she'll often disappear for up to two days at a time, returning with lank hair and love bites, circles under her eyes and rips in her clothes) so when the sunny sky dips into early evening, Dan asks Blair if she'd like to have dinner with him. She straightens up a little bit and bites her lip. "Alright," she says. "I'll have to change first."

Dan is wearing jeans and a t-shirt and has no plans on changing, though he doesn't bother to say anything. Blair has always been a dress-for-dinner kind of girl, even if they were just stopping to get takeout on the way to his apartment. The thought makes him swallow hard. "No problem," he says. "I can meet you."

"It's not far," she says, again worrying her lower lip. He's not sure he's ever seen her do that before. "You could just come up? I won't take long." She smiles slightly, amends, "Very long."

He's going to decline but somehow the word that comes out of his mouth is, "Sure."

Dan follows a step behind Blair all the way back to the hotel and through the lobby, only standing at her side again once they're in the elevator. She kept looking back over her shoulder the entire way like she thinks he might step out on her.

Her room is well suited to her, a mix of glossy modernity and purposeful antiquities. The design of it is neat and classic, all ornate golden mirrors and colorful upholstery against pristine white walls. Nothing was thrown together without great forethought; each piece was a clear decision. That's why it reminds him of Blair, probably, as her image is similarly decided and planned. What's behind the image, though – not so much.

An open doorway leads from the sitting room to the bedroom. A silky something is still laid out over her sheets, abandoned from this morning. On the bedside table is a vase of orange tulips, green stems. He wonders if they're complimentary.

Dan stops at the window, training his gaze outside instead of in. "Great view," he remarks.

"I've had better," Blair says automatically. Despite himself, Dan smiles.

She appears at his side, positioned oddly with her back to him. She glances over her shoulder. "Could you?" she asks, meaning her zipper. "I can't reach."

Dan's not sure he can keep a slight incredulousness from his expression, but he still turns to grasp her zipper and slide it slowly down. The big, airy room feels suddenly airless and Dan can't keep his knuckles from grazing her skin, just a little.

But then he clears his throat and steps back, puncturing the hushed moment. "All done," he says. "I'll wait here."

He would think that was disappointment on Blair's face if he didn't know any better. "Thanks," she murmurs. "I'll try to be quick."

She leaves the door to the bedroom ajar (why not, Dan supposes, it's not like any of it would be new to him) but he keeps his eyes on the street outside, only catching glimpses of her moving around at the edge of his field of vision. In typical Waldorf fashion, the outfit she emerges in is a little too dressy for Dan's plan of let's-eat-at-the-first-place-we-see but it's also kind of…brazenly sexy in a way Blair doesn't typically dress.

It's a relatively simple black dress but it skims so close to the shape of her body that it almost seems to stretch too tight over her hips. Her shoulders and arms are bare, the neckline pulling up into a halter. "Could you get the back again?" she asks, and turns to reveal an almost entirely open back, just a slim zippered strap running from neck to waist. He's not even sure what to point of the zipper is – not that Dan knows anything about clothes – except to drive him crazy by making him do it up.

She has two very noticeable dark brown freckles right between shoulder blades; he used to press a kiss there, usually in the morning to wake her up. He resists the urge now but his hand drifts anyway, gingerly touching the spot as he pretends to smooth the strap.

"You look nice," he says.

It's the simplicity of it that seems so out of place, he decides finally. She's not wearing any jewelry or any color besides black and it makes her seem naked somehow, exposed. It's like she's down one layer of armor.

They end up sticking around the hotel for dinner and it's relatively low-key and low stress on the surface, though Dan is remarkably on edge the entire time. Afterwards she leads the way out into the sticky summer night, her hand reaching back for his. There are no rings on her fingers. "We have touristing left to do," she says.

Their clasped hands are the first prolonged physical contact they'd had since they broke up. There must be some sense memory to it, his hand recognizing hers, because a jolt runs through him at the touch. It settles into anxiousness in the pit of his stomach, a nervousness so acute she must be able to sense it through his skin.

The funny thing is he thinks he feels her fingers tremble in his a little.

They go to the Antico Caffé Greco, one of the few things left on their tourist tour of the city. Admittedly, Dan has been looking forward to it; Rome's an old city in every sense and Dan has been bowled over by it the last two months, having never before been anywhere with quite so much history lining its every square inch.

"You should have put on a nice shirt, at least," Blair says in that gentle chiding way she used to tell him _couldn't you have worn a tie? don't you think you ought to have put on a jacket?_ She smoothes a hand over his chest, nose wrinkling at the plain cotton shirt. The sensation Dan feels in his throat is like a lighter trying to click on and failing; an emotion that refuses to form before he can swallow it down.

The room is warm and red around them, walls cluttered with art in gold frames, the wooden chairs dark and worn. It's somehow soothing, old-fashioned and smelling of coffee, the kind of place he'd only ever want to go to with Blair. They sit in the back corner with a coffee each and one little dessert between them because Blair always refuses to just get her own, instead nibbling off Dan's plate all the time. It's kind of like a date, except nightmarish because it isn't really one. Blair's legs brush against his under the small table and he's reminded of how she used to sometimes rest her ankle over his when they went out.

Blair plucks a piece of glossy fruit off the top of the slice and pops it in her mouth. "I'm surprised you're not with Georgina tonight." Her voice is even, emotion-free. Dan finds his gaze unwillingly drawn to her mouth, her fingers, the fine bones of her wrist.

He shrugs. "You know you're scaring her off."

Blair does a poor job of concealing a little smirk. "I didn't think anything scared her."

"Putting her off, then," he says. "She's not thrilled with me already. I didn't exactly live up to the promise of the summer."

"Oh?" Blair arches a brow. "And what was that?"

"A scathing takedown of everyone we know," he says ruefully. "Well, another one."

A little of Blair's amusement dissipates then. "Have you been so miserable all summer?"

Dan looks at her. "Is that a trick question?"

Blair drops her gaze instead of meeting his, hands smoothing down the napkin in her lap again and again. "I wish you'd have let me explain."

With all the patience he has in him, Dan asks impassively, "What would you have said?"

She hesitates, still refusing to meet his eyes. "That I was sorry."

"That's not an explanation."

Blair releases a little huff of exasperation. "What, would you like an entire psychological analysis, Dan?"

"If you're going to offer an explanation, then I'd like something that actually _resembled_ an explanation." None is forthcoming, however, and it riles him that she can never just _say_ anything. So he decides to say something instead, out of pure honest meanness. "I slept with Serena, you know. Before leaving the city. While you and I were technically still together."

Only technically, as it's not like he'd seen Blair at any point to confirm the end of their relationship. He just heard about it, made assumptions.

He's watching her face for a sign of hurt that he can both savor and kick himself over, a sign that she cares in some way, even if it's just petty jealousy. But she surprises him. "I know," she says. "I've been with Serena the last month."

Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't that. "What?"

"She's in Barcelona," Blair continues. "She still is, I mean. That's where we were. You haven't seen anything online?"

"I haven't been checking," he says.

Both of her hands curl around her cup of coffee but she doesn't bring it to her lips. "Well, that's where I've been. So I know what happened."

"And you don't care, obviously," he says, watching her. "What did Serena say? That it was real easy to get me to give in? That she got me drunk, that she told me you were with Chuck? Did she tell you she filmed it? Because she didn't tell me that, you know. Did –"

"Dan, please." Blair's fingers curl into tight fists, releasing slowly, and she meets his eyes. "Don't. I wanted us to have a nice time tonight."

"Why?" he says. "What does it matter? We're never going to be friends again. It's over."

"Don't say that," Blair says, not scolding so much as hurt – and he can't help the part of himself that still wants to affect her, even if it's just to hurt her. "You're my best friend. Still."

"No I'm not," Dan says. "Best friends don't treat each other like we treat each other. But I guess I understand why you'd be confused, seeing as your other _best friend_ is Serena."

She gets that look on her face that used to remind him of a cat flattening its ears – angry, ready to hiss and attack. "This isn't about her, Dan. I forgive you, okay? I forgive both of you."

"Oh _thank you_ , how fucking magnanimous," he snaps. "You know what? I don't forgive you. How about that?"

He gets up, pausing only to throw some money on the table because that's a particularly arrogant gesture he was never able to do until a couple of months ago. Then he leaves, knocking into a chair as he goes and marring his dramatic exit as well as drawing the eyes of everyone left in the establishment. He does not look back to see if she's looking, but he wants to.

He finds Georgina in bed when he gets back to the flat and wakes her up just to crush his mouth to hers, his hand between her legs.

The next morning he doesn't go down to the café to meet Blair, opting instead to stay in bed with Georgina. Her black slip dips in a deep V that Dan tugs lower until a strap slides from her shoulder, cupping her breast as soon as it's revealed. Georgina's fingers tap against his lips, which open obligingly, catching her fingertips between his teeth.

"Date didn't go well, huh, baby?" Georgina says, eyes glittering maliciously. It's the happiest she's looked all summer.

Dan's only response is to roll her nipple sharply between his fingers, but Georgina likes that, so it's not really effective. Once Dan has effectively exhausted her – and put an end to any questions, or any talking at all – he goes out to sit on the balcony and scratch half-hearted lines of poetry into a notebook. He stopped writing poetry some time in high school, but a late afternoon in Rome with one girl's scratches on his skin and another's on his heart seems a good time to pick it up again.

He is interrupted by such insistent rapping on the door that he knows who it is without having to ask.

On the other side of the door, Blair looks deeply affronted, her arms crossed over her chest. Today she wears the softest, palest pink silk – cherry blossom pink, lingerie pink, the kind of seashell blush that makes him think of her naked skin – and dark red lipstick, a ridiculous little sunhat on her head and floral jewelry shining metallic at her ears, throat, wrists, fingers. She's got all her armor on.

The dress hangs from two straps so thin they look like they could tear if she twisted the wrong way. The bodice hugs her close but the skirt hangs loose from hips to just past her knees, a romantic kind of dress. Anyone else would look at her and think she's pretty as a picture but Dan knows better, knows what Blair dressed for battle looks like. He can't help looking her up and down, even though it's probably in bad taste considering he's got Georgina's marks all over his bare chest, Georgina asleep and well-fucked in his bed.

Blair's lips purse as her eyes travel over him. Then they flick back to his face. "I waited for you."

"Not as long as I waited for you," Dan says.

She blinks, seeming to have not expected that. But she recovers quickly. "You kept yourself occupied," she sneers.

Bluntly, he says, "What difference does it make to you?"

Blair swallows visibly. "Can you just put a shirt on, Humphrey? I want to go to the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna and we're getting a late enough start as it is." Her nose wrinkles as she looks at him again. "Actually, do us both a favor and take a shower."

They're both moody and silent forty minutes later as they stand inside the museum, moving in that slow thoughtful way from piece to piece as though either of them gives a damn. Dan doesn't understand what Blair is playing at and he hasn't understood for a long time, instead just hanging on the last year waiting and waiting to see if things would go his way. He's not sure how much hanging on he can continue to do but he knows if he asks Blair a straight question, he'll get anything but a straight answer.

Then, suddenly, she says, "I can't believe you just walked out last night. You didn't even let me explain."

"It seems you're always on the edge of explaining whenever I'm not around," Dan says. "When I am, you don't have so much to say."

"You don't make it easy," she huffs.

"It's not my job to make things easy for you."

"No, but it's _nice_ ," she says. "It's kind. It's thoughtful. It's all those things I used to think you were."

He gives her a tight, humorless smile. "I guess we're both good at letting each other down, huh?"

She flushes a little, splotchy over her cheeks and throat. She always flushes when she's really angry, or really turned on. The two are pretty close for her. "We both know I've done things I'm not proud of, but I never thought _you_ would hold them against me."

Her choice of words is curious and confusing, but he doesn't ask any of the questions he probably should. "You hurt me," he says. "I think it's my goddamn right to hold it against you."

Blair expels a low breath. "I don't know what I'm doing here," she fumes, turning on her heel. "This was such –"

But he's reaching to catch her elbow, the question that's been on his tongue for two and a half weeks finally coming free: "Why _are_ –"

But before he can finish asking, Blair has spun abruptly again and kissed him, hands crushed against his chest. His hand is still resting lightly on her elbow and he's otherwise frozen, as though his body is too startled to know how to react. Blair pulls back, just a breath of space between them, and presses her fingertips to his lips, wiping away lipstick.

Dan finally touches her, one hand low on her hip and the other at the small of her back. The delicate straps of her dress are woven into a crisscross all down her back, lightly corseted over bare skin. He tangles his fingers in the loose hanging bow, tempted to pull the strings and see if the whole thing falls apart. "What was that?"

"I think it's commonly called a kiss," Blair breathes. She tilts forward so her forehead is pressed to his, her eyes close so he can't read them. "You're familiar with kissing, aren't you?"

They make it outside and into a taxi, though that's as far as they get before Blair's mouth is on his again. He wipes her lipstick off carelessly on his sleeve first, a deep red blur against pale blue. Kissing Blair in the back of a cab is familiar in a way that makes him ache. He presses as close as he can, hands curling in her silk skirt, in the thin, thin straps.

Blair hauls him out of the cab and through the hotel lobby by the shirt, hitting the button to close the elevator doors before another couple can step inside. Dan can't help laughing at the surprise on their faces but then Blair is pressing him against the elevator wall, and that's familiar too.

His shirt is half off by the time they get inside Blair's room and that's just about as much waiting as either of them can take; as soon as the door slams shut, Dan has her up against it, hands under her thighs lifting her up. He nearly loses his balance in the fumbling to get clothes out of the way, remaining upright only through some act of god. He presses into her hands, arches against her and revels in the low, helpless moan caught in her throat.

Blair clutches him tight as he fucks her, arms around his shoulders and then around his neck, her gasps in his ear driving him along. He fucks her about as hard as he can manage while keeping his balance, though eventually his legs threaten to give out; he slides out of her and folds to his knees, brings her thigh up onto his shoulder and uses his mouth on her until she trembles.

Blair sinks down to the floor with him, fingers tangling in his hair as she kisses him. The frantic atmosphere dulls for one long moment while she kisses him, while she holds his face in his hands, her forehead against his. Then she's pushing him flat onto his back and settling onto him, a half-smile curling her lips. The pace she sets is brutal and Dan just does his best to meet it, hips canting up as hers rock down. He keeps his eyes open when he comes so he can see her fall apart a second time, watch the way she bites her lip and tips her head back, shudders with contentment.

Afterwards they crawl under her covers in whatever mussed clothes they've still got on. Dan is out with an immediacy he hasn't known all summer and he really doesn't want to think about how that's connected to the girl wrapped up in his arms. But facts are facts: he hasn't slept half so well since the last time he had Blair curled around him.

When he wakes the bed is empty and the room is dark. Light shines out of the half-open bathroom door, distant music echoing faintly. He gets out of bed and goes into the bathroom to find an expectedly luxurious marble extravaganza, Blair tucked into a bubble bath right in the middle of it. Her eyes are closed and her hair is up, a few escaping tendrils trailing on the surface of the water.

"Hey," he says awkwardly. He crosses his arms over his chest, but it just makes him very aware of how his open shirt is all tangled around him, so he spends a minute trying to get untangled while Blair watches with an amused raised eyebrow.

"Why don't you just take that off and come here?" she says.

"Uh, I don't know," Dan says. He starts doing up his buttons, thinking that he really should find pants… Last he remembers seeing them, he'd been kicking them off before getting into bed. "I should probably go."

"Go?" Blair sits up a little, water sloshing around her, and he can't deny how inviting the sight is – big eyes peering at him, wet skin shining. But her expression is carefully restrained. "I had another idea." She extends one soapy arm, offering a hand that Dan automatically steps toward.

"What's that?" he asks as her fingertips curl over the waistband of his briefs.

"Let's get drunk," she says. "Really drunk. Messy. Very messy."

Dan can't help the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. "Oh yeah?"

She's answering his barely-there smile with a wide one of her own, drawing him down for a kiss. "Yes," she murmurs against his lips. Her fingers twist in his hair, tugging a little. "Your hair's too long." A pause. "I like it."

Blair promises to be quick getting ready but because she is Blair it is obviously a lie. Dan lazes around on her bed like he used to, sighing melodramatically from time to time and flipping through the trashy novel she's got on her bedside table. He climbs back into his own rumpled clothes, trying to smooth them fruitlessly for a minute before giving up. The dark berry stain of Blair's lipstick gleams obviously on his sleeve.

They go to some crowded club or café or something, Dan isn't sure what to call it, and go about getting wrecked. Blair drinks gin and Dan drinks anything, and it's very easy, in the atmosphere buzzing with noise and music and late night air, to let alcohol convince him that things are simple. They are just two people having fun. Blair is all laughter that seems less forced the more she drinks; Dan is wry smiles and low-voiced sarcasm. It's simple.

Blair's cheeks are very pink with heat and booze – or maybe it's just makeup – as she puts an arm through his, leaning against him. "Remember how you used to sing when I asked you to," she says, and of course Dan remembers; their time together was impossible to forget.

He sang in the shower like most of the known world and Blair teased that he had secret rock star delusions, but she must've liked it because sometimes when they were quiet and cozy she'd ask him to do it.

There has been a succession of people of questionable talent performing on the café's tiny platform, and Dan doesn't speak enough Italian to know if it's karaoke or open mike or what. But Blair gets it into her head that he should get up there and she won't let it go, so after one faltering half-in-English conversation with a bartender, Dan gets up there. Clearly he still has trouble not giving her what she wants.

He borrows the guitar of the last guy, thinking he'll do some Smiths or Pixies, maybe one of his dad's songs; he's drunk enough to not be embarrassed about it. But when he looks at Blair what comes out of his mouth is _Moon River_. He doesn't even realize he's doing it half out of cruelty until he sees the way her breath is sucked out of her. Her good humor vanishes in a blink and, as the familiar words leave his mouth, there's something like heartbreak on her face, a specific vulnerability that he suspects only he has ever seen.

Before he's close to done, Blair gets to her feet, upset, and pushes through the crowd to the door. Dan cuts himself off mid-note and thrusts the instrument back at its owner, rushing to follow her as perplexed and scattered applause sounds in his wake.

It's raining outside. Blair is frozen about a foot from the entrance as though she just realized but is unwilling to come back inside. Dan is less concerned, stepping out into the downpour as he starts, "Blair –"

"I didn't come here so you could make fun of me," she snaps.

"I'm not," he says, but maybe he was; he knows there was meanness in him choosing that song, perhaps mocking too. He wanted to take the things she loved and hurt her with them. She should be proud; that's one of her moves.

"I get it, alright? I do. It was stupid of me to come here thinking you'd still –" Blair purses her lips, angrily pushing wet hair out of her face. "But you don't have to make me feel like – I don't know why you came back to my hotel, if it was some revenge thing –"

"I don't do revenge things," he says. "That's what you do."

"Oh really?" she snaps. "What about your book? What about _Serena_?"

Dan looks away. "Do we have to do this right now? In the fucking rain?"

Blair's arms are too straight at her side, fingers clenched into fists, so yeah, it seems like they do have to do this right now in the fucking rain. She blinks with lashes heavy with falling rain, mascara smudging on her cheeks, and so transformed by her anger that he thinks maybe she was never lovelier. It's a wonder she doesn't care about looking so messy.

"Sometimes you're impossible too, Dan," she says. "The way you would look at me, like you expected so much of me, like I was so wonderful when I _wasn't_ and we both knew it – It was too much to live up to, no one could live up to the girl you thought I was –"

"Oh, I'm sorry for loving you," he says sarcastically. "I'm sorry for believing in you when you couldn't –"

Blair groans loudly. "God, you're so _noble_ , aren't you? You're so noble and I'm just this crying lost mess –"

"I never said that!" Dan exclaims. "I didn't expect a goddamn _thing_ from you, okay, I just wanted you to be happy –"

"You wanted to make me happy," Blair says, tone suddenly more gentle and subdued. "That's not – that's not _bad_ , Dan, but – but you knew that I had a lot of _stuff_ I was dealing with; you probably knew better than anyone. And just because you were kind and sweet and I loved you doesn't mean all of that goes away, or that I was any better at handling it. I know that it was horrible of me to do what I did and I know that I hurt you, but I just – I had to do it, I had to fuck everything up and I had to fix it by myself."

Dan is quiet for a moment, looking at her through the, frankly, torrential downpour, her expression both defiant and hopeful. "Full psychological analysis, huh?"

"Don't try to be cute, I'm very angry," Blair says, but something in the way she's holding herself relaxes.

"I don't know that I really get it," he offers. "But I know it's hard for you to…say things like that. So…thanks."

"You don't have to thank me, Dan," she sighs. "I just want you to stop hating me."

"I never hated you, and you know it," he says. His thoughts haven't been particularly charitable for the last few months, but that was a lot of bitterness talking. "I couldn't."

The few stragglers swimming through the flood are giving them a wide berth, and Dan realizes how they look, suddenly: two people facing off in the middle of the street in the middle of the night.

"I'd really like to be less drowned," Blair says, and after a moment's hesitation they both take steps closer, and then they both go inside to call a cab.

The idea of returning to her hotel or his borrowed apartment is not an appealing one, so they pay to drive around aimlessly until the rain clears up. By the time the sun yawns pale yellow in the sky, they have decided where to go.

Outside of the cab Dan brushes his thumbs over the black smudges of makeup under her eyes, but they don't really budge. It makes Blair smile, though, and reach up to twist a curl of his hair around her finger. "We look like we survived a shipwreck," she says.

"Kind of did," Dan tells her.

She rolls her eyes fondly. "Don't be dramatic."

There's no one around this early, or very few people at least, so they make their way across the street and past the trees with no interruption. Dan keeps his hands in his pockets but the energy between them is strangely comfortable, companionable, and he feels the most at ease he's felt since she arrived. They come to a stop in front of the Bocca della Verità, the Mouth of Truth, the big and unwieldy stone circle with a face stamped on it like a giant coin. The surface is cracked and weathered, eyes and mouth black with emptiness, creepy. It just has a half-hearted little rope in front of it. Dan and Blair study it a moment, heads tilted, and then he says, "I will if you will."

Blair glances at him with a suppressed little smile as they turn to face each other. She holds up a hand, wriggles her fingers, and then places it on the statue's lip. "This is hygienically unsound," she says.

Dan follows suit, fingertips reaching towards gritty darkness. "I'll buy you some Purell after."

"You can go first," she tells him.

Dan has a mouthful of questions, but none of them are easy ones. The atmosphere shifts, becoming more serious and less silly. "Why him?"

He can see Blair's tongue press up against the back of her teeth as she keeps herself from reacting emotionally, or at all. "I don't know anymore," she says finally. "It's not something I want, it's like..." She clears her throat. "Something I deserve." She doesn't make _deserve_ sound like a good word at all. "Why Serena?"

 _To hurt you_ is his first answer, but it's not quite that, not entirely. "Attention, I guess, sort of," Dan says. "She wanted me and you didn't. I thought you didn't. It felt good. And then it felt a lot worse. Does she hate me?"

"A little bit," Blair says. "Do you hate her?"

"A little bit," Dan says.

"You should probably work on that." The half-smile that curls a corner of her mouth is sympathetic and sorry. "Are you still angry with me?"

Dan looks at her for a long moment, just looks at her. She is bedraggled and air-dried, her hair in need of brushing and makeup messy. She is here in Rome, standing with her hand in a grimy statue offering him the truth. "Maybe," he says. "But the other stuff supersedes it."

Blair ducks her head but not quickly enough to hide her smile, and the innocent sweetness of it warms him immensely.

Softly, Dan says, "Why did you come here?"

"For you," Blair says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. Maybe it is. Her fingers inch along the stone until they slip between his. "I came here for you."

It's what he wouldn't admit to wanting to hear and he's surprised how hard it hits him; it feels like he's been waiting for those words a lot longer than a few weeks. Before he knows it Blair's arms are around him, her hand cupping the back of his head, drawing him into a hug.

"All summer," she says, voice sounding like she's a little emotional herself, "I kept thinking, like – 'oh, Dan would like that movie,' or 'what would Dan think of that book?' And then it was worse, all the time, if there was something funny, I thought of you; if some European hipster was wearing plaid, or I passed a bookstore – sometimes one of those terrible grungey songs you put on my phone would just come on and –"

Dan pulls back enough to kiss her to shut her up, because he's not sure how much more of that he can take. "You've picked up a rambling thing from somewhere," he murmurs when they part.

"I know, it's a terribly unattractive quality," Blair says.

"Looks alright on you." He gets another eye-roll for that and Blair shoves him a little, curling her hand in his shirt so he doesn't get too far. Dan cups her cheek, wanting to just – breathe her in, or something, and he kisses her instead, again and again. "This doesn't feel totally real."

"You want proof?" Blair says teasingly and pinches him _very_ hard, unnecessarily hard, honestly, and he can't help laughing.


End file.
